When agrochemicals, such as plant protection agents and especially herbicides, are used, the cultivated plants may be damaged to a certain degree, depending on factors such as the dose of agrochemicals and their method of application, the species of cultivated plant, the nature of the soil and climatic conditions, for example, length of time of exposure to light, temperature and amounts of precipitation. Thus, it is known that cultivated plants which are to be protected from the adverse effect of undesirable plant growth may be damaged to a certain degree when an effective dose of herbicide is used. Various substances which are capable of specifically preventing the adverse effect of an herbicide on the cultivated plants, i.e. of protecting the cultivated plants without at the same time noticeably influencing the herbicidal action on weeds to be combated, have been proposed to solve this problem. However, it has been found that the antidotes proposed frequently have only a narrow field of use, i.e., a particular antidote is frequently suitable only for use with individual species of cultivated plants and/or for protecting the cultivated plants from individual herbicidal substances or classes of substances. It has also been found that the antidotes proposed frequently are used at rates higher than the rates of the individual herbicidal substance.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,314,849 B2 describes certain 6-(polysubstituted aryl)-4-amino-2-pyridinecarboxylate compounds and their use as herbicides. While certain of these compounds have been shown to be particularly effective herbicides for controlling undesirable vegetation in cereal crops, they have also been shown to produce slight amounts of damage to both wheat and barley at concentrations required to adequately control the undesirable vegetation. U.S. Pat. No. 7,314,849 B2 also describes the safening of the herbicidal injury with cloquintocet-mexyl at herbicide-to-safener ratio that lies within the range of between about 1:1 and about 1:4, i.e., at a ratio where the rate of safener is equal to or exceeds the rate of the herbicide.